Paul and Lucy Spadoni periodically live in Tuscany to explore Paul’s Italian roots, practice their Italian and enjoy “la dolce vita.”
All work is copyrighted and may not be reprinted without written permission from the author, who can be contacted at www.paulspadoni.com

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Much still to be uncovered about the fascinating Nuragic civilization

This nuraghe (tower) has lost its top. It was once about twice this height.

Friday, April 28

Most of the week, we have been enjoying dolce far niente—reading,
walking or lying on the beach, sitting on the deck, browsing through the street
markets, people-watching in piazze. Today we decide to take a short history
lesson, and we drive to a nuraghe to find out more about the prehistoric tribes
that populated Sardegna.

Inside the tholos, the top is
thicker and the opening narrows.

A nuraghe is a tower in a middle of a community center of a
civilization that had its roots here as early as 1800 BC. A nuragic village
served as a fortress, city hall, center of trade and dwelling place for the
tribal leaders. The people who built them are referred to as the nuragic
civilization, taken from the name of their primary structures, and there are
between 7,000 and 8,000 nuraghi in Sardegna, one for every three square
kilometers.

The nuragic village we visit, La Prisciona, was largely
buried by the natural forces of wind, dust, decay and erosion, but careful
excavation in recent years has uncovered some of its treasures. Our guide,
Ornella, tells us that the heart of the village is a naraghe, a conical tower.
La Prisgiona has one eight-meter tower left, but in ancient times, it had two,
and they were probably about 40 feet tall.

Many nuragic villages have more towers than La Prisciona
did. On the outside, the tower walls are pretty much vertical, but inside they
widen at the top, making the opening smaller and smaller. This is called a tholos,
or false dome, because from inside, it has the appearance of a dome, but it can
still stand without the top being closed completely to support the wall
structure. Between the outer wall and inner wall, there was a winding stone staircase,
but in La Priscione, it has partly caved in and is no longer passable.

This 1000 BC bronze
Nuragic statue may
give an idea of
what a more elaborate
naraghe looked like.

Outside the tower, Ornella shows us an ancient well, which
still has fresh water in the bottom. Many pottery vases have been retrieved
from the well and are now displayed in a museum in Sassari. Some were very
plain and were used to draw water out, but others were ornate and may have been
thrown into the well as part of some kind of ritual, she says.

She also shows us a round meeting room where tribal elders
probably met to talk about work, exchange gossip, argue about soccer and gripe
about taxes. Well, she wasn’t really that specific about what they discussed,
but I am basing my theory on what Italian men of today do in their little
groups. In the center of the room was a granite stand which held a pottery
pitcher, but archeologists don’t know whether it held wine, beer or some other
kind of drink.

Other round rooms outside the tower were likely workshops
for potters, tool makers and other craftsmen, Ornella says. This opinion is
based on the various fragments found buried on the floors. Perhaps as many as
100 other huts are still buried in the four hectares surrounding La Priscione,
and these will be excavated in the coming years. Many were probably homes.

Not far from the nuraghe is another tomb of the giants,
bigger than the one we explored on Monday. The island is also dotted with these
tombs, since all the villages had to have burial sites. The nuragic people
dominated Sardegna until they were defeated by the Carthaginians around 500 BC
and forced to take refuge in the mountainous interior. The Carthaginians were
defeated in turn by the Romans, and Sardegna became a Roman province. The nuragic
civilization still maintained a separate identity until around 200 AD.

This is another Nuragic village, Barumini, and it gives some idea of what archaeologists may find when they
finish excavating La Prisciona.

Once back in our room, I look up more information and find
that these people have fascinated and baffled historians for many years. According
to Massimo Pallottino, a scholar of Sardinian prehistory, the architecture
produced by the Nuragic civilization was the most advanced of any
civilization in the western Mediterranean during this epoch, including those in
the regions of Magna Graecia.

It is surmised that the nuragic people were organized in
clans led by a chief. Many bronze art figures have been found, and from these it
is guessed that religion and warfare had a strong role in the society. They raised
crops and animals and were fishermen and traders. Since Sardegna has remained
relatively undeveloped in comparison with the rest of Italy, most of the
nuraghe remain undisturbed. Only a handful of the 7,000-plus nuraghi have been
scientifically excavated, so we can look forward to more of the mysteries about
this ancient culture to be revealed in coming years.

Bronze figures reveal much about the once powerful Nuragic civilization, which had advanced armies and
boats that may have once dominated the Mediterranean.

No comments:

Post a Comment

An Amazon.com "Italy memoir" BEST SELLER

‟An American family spends a year in Italy–a dream, a disaster, laughter and tears, an unforgettable memory. Warning: this book may cause you to book a flight to Italy. Enjoy!” –Maria Coletta McLean, author of My Father Came from Italy

Follow us by Email

Search This Blog

About Me

First off, before you hassle me about our title, Lucy thought of it. Yes, I know some people may think broad is derogatory, but the etymology is uncertain and she doesn’t find it offensive, and it made me laugh. We have been married since 1974 and are empty-nesters now, which allows me to bring my submerged Italophilia into the open. We first came to live in Italy from February-April in 2011 and have returned during the same months every year. From 2011-2015, we lived in San Salvatore, at the foot of the hilltop city Montecarlo, where my paternal grandparents were born, raised and, in 1908, married. In late 2015, we bought a home in Montecarlo. We come for a variety of purposes: We want to re-establish contact with distant cousins in both Nonno’s and Nonna’s families, we want to learn the language and see what it is like to live as Italians in modern Italy, we like to travel and experience different cultures. Even if we aren’t successful at achieving these purposes, we love Italy and enjoy every moment here, so there is no chance we will be disappointed. I am grateful to God for giving me a wife who is beautiful, clever, adaptable and willing to jump into my dreams wholeheartedly.